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No matter how many times Amado feels the wheels lift off the tarmac, it never gets old. It‘s indescribable, that brief weightlessness, the jolt up and back down as they challenge god to let them breach once more into his endless sky. He prefers the view from from the cockpit, his hands on the controls, but this isn’t his trip. He’s here for Miguel. So he’ll sit back, put his dust dirty feet up on the cream leather and let Miguel guide him. Especially given the offer out on the table.
“You’ll be in charge of the whole operation,” Miguel says, breathless, before looking away, the gleam of his liquor wet mouth like starlight. Amado forced his own eyes from Miguel’s lips and sets his sights on the horizon as Miguel lays the rest of the offer on the table. The runways, the flights, and Juárez as the axle in the middle of the white dusted wheel. Amado can picture it now, the stripes of black tarmac dotting the endless green, an empire at his wingtips.
“See,” Miguel is saying, “I told you it was important.”
Did you choose Juárez because of me? Amado wants to ask, Or did you choose me for Juárez because of this?
The questions lay unspoken in the air. Asking them would bring up too many other questions. Like that of payment in kind. Miguel has said what Amado will get. But what is he willing to give in return? His loyalty? His obedience? Miguel has had both for quite some time. After all, there was only one man capable of pulling Amado from the dust caked runways of Juárez to the intercontinental waters of Panama with a snap of his fingers, and he sat across the empty aisle, his smile open, almost guileless.
“The money from this will make us untouchable.”
Untouchable. The word sends a shiver down Amado’s sweat-soaked spine. It’s a word that begs to be defied. A year ago Amado might have been tempted by the taunt. Might have crossed the cabin, letting the cockpit door click closed, might have tested the feel of tapioca colored cotton on his knees, might have slipped his hand between the folds of Miguel’s expensive linen to see if he still wore a cross against his heart.
A shadow crosses Miguel’s face and Amado is suddenly glad he hasn’t moved. He folds his hands across his lap and holds them there, a guard against his worse instincts.
“I sometimes thought you would back out on me,” Miguel is saying, his brow furrowed. That was odd. New. The fear. The implication that leaving Miguel was even an option. Here he was, so close to the unassailable peak of power, the spot from which he could not be removed, and Miguel was looking back.
Years later, Amado would say this was the moment. The day he made his decision. The mistake was in the looking - it marked the difference between a king and a pillar of salt.
“Why would I back out?” Amado asks, his arm cool against the windowpane, his heartbeat a riot.
He’s grateful when the stewardess interrupts, though he can barely do her the compliment of eyeing her smooth legs. He stares at his lap instead, willing himself to calm down in every sense of the word. The impulse to run was fleeting and he’d meant his question honestly. Innocently even. Miguel has given him everything. Spared him and promoted him at every turn. If Miguel wanted him as copilot in his ascent, who was Amado to say no?
—
The same black silk that earned him mocking nicknames on the tarmac was a welcome armor against the relentless prickle of the frigid hotel room air. Every impulse was telling him to grab Miguel and run. The empty chairs loomed in his periphery; stark white beacons of failed promises, of broken futures and the gulf’s lies. He stills against the deep couch, eyeing the colorful man across from him. The meeting passes over him like voices from underwater, as Miguel plays Colombian roulette, betting everything they have on 70, red. When he sips his whisky it takes metallic, like blood oaths spilling on desert sand. He doesn’t have to wonder what Pablo Acosta would do in this room - he would never find himself there to begin win.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Pacho Herrera is saying, his shirt bright as parrot’s plumage, neon in this matte room.
“Amado Carrillo Fuentes,” he almost stutters, his voice softer than he means it to be.
“Amado Carrillo Fuentes,” Herrera repeats, his voice a whispered promise.
On days he’s not lying to himself, the moment Pacho Herrera said his name was the second nail in Miguel’s cross.
When Pacho offers Amado a silken hand, its with an air of aristocracy. He bites back the absurd urge to lift it to his lips and press a kiss to the knuckles. Instead he lets his fingers linger a moment too long before shuffling after Miguel, his heart racing with silent fury.
—
Most men get bigger when they’re angry. Throw their arms out, start reaching, swinging, punching at the demons that pricked them, but not Miguel. No, Miguel gets smaller, folds his arms across his chest, pushes it down until it’s so small you could barely see it, but Amado can. He can feel it, radiating through the elevator. It should scare him, to see Miguel like this. After all, it‘s been a long time since he‘a seen Miguel this angry, but it didn’t. It made him—fuck. This is Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. El patron patron. He knows it’s crazy not to be afraid. But Miguel always liked a little crazy — after all, he’d kept Rafa around far past his expiration date. And Amado isn’t going anywhere.
At least not right now.
He lets Miguel rage through their enormous suite, leaning against an open doorframe as Miguel disappears around the corner. He waits to hear the sound of glass breaking, the noises of anger and destruction, but for the harsh tones of the call to the gulf and a phone misplaced, thrown carelessly across the bed, there’s no sign of Miguel’s anger. Even in the throes of deadly disappointment Miguel can’t stand to make a mess.
Amado eyes the phone, Miguel’s slight frame hunched over a cigarette and a glass of whisky. If not for the barest quiver of his cigarette, one might think Miguel was perfectly calm. But Amado knows him too well for that. He crosses the room and crouches before Miguel. It would be nothing to reach across the scant space between him and run a rough hand over Miguel’s cheek. He could almost feel Miguel’s whisky wet lip beneath his thumb. In another life he’d pry Miguel’s lips open and give him something more interesting to suck on than endless smoke. Instead he lets the silence stretch between them.
“What did the gulf say?”
Miguel grunts in response, turning his head away from Amado. “They’ll pay for this,” he says, more for himself than Amado. “They’ll wish they joined the federation when they had the chance.”
Amado nods. This was the Miguel he knew. The one who, when backed into a corner, did things no one thought imaginable. He used to be so comfortable beside this man, beneath him, but these days it was like there was another Miguel he wore atop the one Amado saw. Amado preferred this version of Miguel. Broken, a bit, but unapologetically wanting. This was the man he had gotten on his knees for time and time again.
Miguel turns back to meet Amado’s eyes. His gaze is dark, uncomplicated with a want that Amado cannot possibly meet. There’s no question here. Amado knows what he wants. He wants to take something no one has offered, to feel the king again. It was a part Amado had played before, but he doesn’t know if he can do it again. It’s been too long—
As if he senses Amado’s fears, Miguel looks away again, waving Amado away. “Go.” He says darkly, “I will call for you when we leave.”
Amado hesitates. “Miguel—“
“Just go.”
He complies, leaving the room as silently as he entered, letting the door click softly behind him. He doesn’t breathe until he hits the hallway. There he sinks against the wall, resisting the urge to punch it.
Once free of his thrall, the truth sinks in. Miguel and his endless wants were going to get him killed.
—
When Amado returns to the hotel room, it reeks of stale smoke and spilled liquor and sex. He picks his way through discarded undergarments like proverbial breadcrumbs to make his way to his room. His own head is spinning, the echoes of bad decisions that he’s sure to feel in the morning light.
The lights are low across the suite and the sounds of rising desire waft through the open door of the master bedroom. Amado can hear the feminine squeaks and sighs well before he sees their owners, a pair of heavy breasted local girls, though from the way they’re wrapped around each other it‘s hard to tell which voice belongs to which body.
As for Miguel, he‘s dressed still. His shirt’s unbuttoned, his pants as well. He sits upright, his back against the lush headboard, cock in hand, watching. He meets Amado’s eyes as he passes, and Amado finds himself stopped, transfixed by the scene. A half smile curls on Miguel’s lips. It’s not hard to catch the implication of the look. There was room there, if he wanted to join. In fact, Amado knows if he crossed that threshold, there was a very good chance Miguel would send the women away.
He almost does it too. Almost unlatches the last of his self control and gives himself over to Miguel. It wouldn’t be the first time. There was something so comforting about it, about letting go of his own wants, about learning every intricacy of Miguel’s needs and meeting them exactly. About knowing exactly why he was in a room and what he brought to it.
But that the problem with doubts. Once he caught the strand of one, it peeled like old wallpaper, revealing a thousand more beneath. To worship Miguel was to see only the mask and none of the rot.
He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t walk backwards through those doors and be all Miguel’s again. Instead he grabs an abandoned whisky glass from the nearby table and lifts it in salute, his eyes flickering between Miguel’s face and wanting cock. When he drinks, he drains the glass, his own cock twitching in his pants. It’s the fuel he needs to thrust himself to his lonely bedroom, the moans of Miguel’s whores a lonely lullaby as he palms himself to sleep.
—
The bright rays of sun through the plane windows are pulsing reminders of last night’s mistakes. Though it hurts to see the sun through the heat of the hangover, Amado can’t bring himself to shutter them. He loves the sight of clouds descending beneath him. Besides, the headache’s a fair penance for the number of drinks Pacho Herrera poured into him the night before while Miguel fucked (or didn’t, as it were) his Panamanian prostitutes.
For Miguel’s part, he doesn’t ask where Amado was. It’s not that Amado wouldn’t lie to Miguel, but he would prefer not to. Would prefer to leave the entire trip in the past, foregone and forgotten.
He can’t though. Can’t ignore the 70 ton consequence that was flying into Juárez on aircraft they did not yet control. (He did not yet control.) The cool glass vibrates like so many jackhammers as Amado presses his forehead to the windowpane. He’s dimly aware of Miguel speaking to the stewardess, of the clink of a glass being placed on the tray next to him.
“That’s right mija,” Miguel is saying, “we won’t need you for the rest of the flight. Close the door behind you, and don’t come out until the wheels touch down, my partner and I have business to discuss.” Partner? That‘s him. Fuck. What could Miguel want to discuss now. There‘s an edge in his voice. Something dangerous and unforgiving. He wants something. The stewardess nods, murmuring a reply in that high pitched tone that only money brought out in women, and retreats, leaving them alone in the cabin, anchors at opposing windows with the endless space of two empty seats between them.
When Amado lifts his head from the window, Miguel is staring at him. He flicks his eyes to the tray and Amado reaches for the glass, raising it to Miguel. “Is this what you imagined when we left for Panama?”
An impertinent question, and one he’ll no doubt regret, but Amado doesn’t care. Not right now. It’s a question emboldened by the remainder of Pacho Herrera’s liquor still in his bloodstream and the echoes of Miguel’s mistakes ringing in his ears. Amado drinks deep and slumps in his seat, but in the space of a sip, Miguel is beside him, decanter in hand. Amado wordlessly lifts his glass as Miguel pours, and no sooner does Miguel let up than Amado drains his glass again. This time Miguel leaves him dry. “No, but I’m not worried,” Miguel says finally, letting out that half hitched laugh he made when he was lying, “are you?”
Is Amado worried? He isn’t well acquainted with the emotion, but if he’s guessing by glasses of whisky, he supposes he might be. No drought like fear tasted quite as sweet.
Yes, cabrón, I’m fucking worried, he should say, or else no patron, I'm never worried. Instead he says nothing, Miguel’s arm’s a hairs breadth from his own, and in the quiet of the cabin he can hear him breathing those measured breaths. He can’t look at Miguel, so he eyes the window instead, pretending he’s thinking about something other than the heat of Miguel’s breath.
“I spoke to Azul about that pinche pelón,” Miguel says. Amado feels the air move as Miguel ghosts his fingers against his wrist. He knows his pulse is racing. Knows Miguel can feel it beneath his fingertips. It’s a road he’s walked before. “He’ll wish he never fucked with me. With us.” Miguel drops his wrist and lets his hand brush against Amado’s thigh. “I know yesterday wasn’t what I promised.” Amado stiffens as Miguel runs his hand softly up his inside seam.
“Miguel—“ Amado’s voice is harsh despite his liquored throat, betraying too much with a single word.
This time when Miguel laughs, there’s triumph in it. “What, Amado? Do you think your loyalty is undeserving of reward?”
Amado flicks his gaze to the cockpit door and back to Miguel.
“Are you afraid Amado? After all this time?” Miguel lets his hand drift ever upward, and Amado knows he can feel him half hard beneath the black denim. He grabs Miguel’s wrist and Miguel smiles. “If they hear us, I’ll send them to Tijuana for target practice.” He tugs his fettered wrist to his mouth and flicks his tongue against Amado’s fingertips, sending jolts down his spine. “Do you not want me, Amado? Do you not want what I’m offering you? We could be kings. But you hesitate.”
There it was. Take Miguel’s hand or take nothing. Loyalty to a disloyal man, or death at the hands of his enemies. They made monuments in deserts to men like Miguel, but Amado knows the truth. Those towers were tombs and he was determined to remain unburied.
“Yes—“ he breathes, his resolve at once collapsing with his grip, “yes I want it.”
This time Miguel’s smile is real as he puts his freed hand to use undoing Amado’s button. “Good.” He says, and again “good.”
The stale plane air is cold against Amado’s cock but Miguel’s hand is warm as he works it free of the fabric. “You’ll control the sky,” he says, thumb tracing the length of Amado’s shaft, “and I the land. The Colombians won’t know what hit them.” Each stroke of palm against skin sends a shudder through Amado but he says nothing. What is there to say?
“We’ll move their coke, and then their money will be in our hands, their power will be in our hands.”
The plane rumbles beneath them as the most powerful man in Mexico strokes his hard cock. It’s a moment meant to be savored, but Amado feels sick. When he closes his eyes, it’s not Miguel he sees, but Pacho Herrera, shirt bright as a traffic cone in the Panama night.
He comes with a start, eyes half lidded, the two men flickering in his minds eye. It’s a mirage of Pacho and Miguel both, like men seen through jet flame heat, wavering and unsteady. When he opens his eyes, Miguel’s smiling. He parts Amado’s lips with unclean fingers, and Amado sucks as he has so many times before, tasting himself and Miguel’s sweat sweet skin. Miguel eyes the mess in his lap. “Go,” he says, settling back into his chair, “get yourself cleaned up. We land soon, and you have planes to purchase. Partner.”
Amado moves without falling in line like so many good soldiers. This is how it must be. Miguel was going to make him very very rich. After all he gave him Juárez, and Juárez was the key to it all. And it was so easy to be in Miguel’s power, so easy to listen, to do as he was told.
Miguel sometimes thought Amado would back out on him. That’s what he had said the day before. But Amado knew the truth. There would be no gutting Miguel from behind. When the knife went in, Amado would look him in the eyes.
Perhaps then at last he would know what it was to be untouchable.